Ever play the game "telephone" in school or with friends when you were a kid?

One person would whisper into the ear of another person, followed by her whispering what was supposed to be the same message to the next person, followed by him doing likewise and so on, until the last person in the sequence, several people later, would say what he or she had been told. Invariably it bore little resemblance to the original message.

Something tells me that former congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, Democrat of Georgia, was one of those kids certain to botch the message en route.

After yesterday's horrifying explosions at the finish line of the Boston Marathon, McKinney tweeted this --

The pattern is becoming too, too familiar. So, Boston cops were having a "bomb squad drill" on the same day as ... http://fb.me/1JHrFKCc9

The link in McKinney's tweet leads to a post at NaturalNews.com by Mike Adams titled "Boston marathon bombing happened on same day as 'controlled explosion' drill by Boston bomb squad."

First flag that goes up to indicate McKinney is on shaky ground -- she quotes Adams as stating a "bomb squad drill" was held on the day of the marathon, when he described a "controlled explosion" taking place. Here is what Adams wrote --

What's not yet being reported by the mainstream media is that a "controlled explosion" was under way on the same day as the marathon explosion.

Wow, heck of a coincidence, huh? My first impression too. But when you drill further into the link provided by Adams, a screen grab of the Boston Globe's Twitter feed just after the explosions, an entirely plausible explanation comes to mind.

Adams' screen grab shows several tweets from the Globe, all obviously posted in the immediate aftermath of the blasts. As you can see from my screen grab posted at right, the relevant tweets about the bomb squad are preceded by tweets about the explosions at the marathon finish line. Then come the two tweets that grabbed the attention of Adams and McKinney -- "BREAKING NEWS: Police will have a controlled explosion on 600 block on Boylston Street" and "Officials: There will be a controlled explosion opposite the library within one minute as part of bomb squad activities."

In other words, the "controlled explosion" wasn't planned by police to take place at the end of the Boston Marathon, as runners were crossing the finish line, for whatever bizarre (or nefarious) reason that police would do this, as claimed by Adams and implied by McKinney. Instead, it could hardly be more obvious that police targeted a suspicious bag or package for a controlled explosion just after multiple blasts had already occurred in the same area.

Adams and McKinney immediately jump to suspicion of police collusion in the bombings. Looks more to this observer like good police work.

Moreover, Adams looks even more foolish in writing this --

Some people believe this bomb might have been part of the demolition of another bomb. It seems unlikely, however, that a bomb at the library, one mile away, could be so easily located and rigged to be exploded by the bomb squad in less than an hour following the initial explosions at the marathon.

Note the emphasis on "in less than an hour," emphasis his and not mine. But Adams is confusing the John F. Kennedy Library, "one mile away," where a fire occurred at roughly the same time as the marathon bombings, with the Boston Public Library -- where the marathon ends. In fact, the first of the two blasts occurred directly across the street from the Boston Public Library. Given that a second explosion followed in less than 20 seconds a hundred yards away, it surely occurred to emergency responders that they might be hit by yet another blast, directly targeting them, at the site of the first explosion. Hence the need for controlled detonations of any suspicious bags or parcels at the scene, of which there were likely to be many in the wake of a panic involving so many people.

I'm reminded of the hurried message sent out by an American military officer on Ford Island in Oahu at approximately 8 a.m. on Dec. 7, 1941 -- "Air raid, Pearl Harbor -- This is not a drill." The horror unleashed yesterday in Boston was no "drill", Ms. McKinney -- it was the real thing.

Those familiar with McKinney already know about her disdain for police and penchant for conspiracy mongering. Fortunately for all, she's no longer in a position to spout her lunacy from Congress, having been voted out in 2006.